


Distractions

by eadunne2



Series: Friends, Right? [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, BAMF Castiel, Badass Castiel, Domestic, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings, cas in boxers, dean's an ass, human cas, puppy, what even are these tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 01:12:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5228198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eadunne2/pseuds/eadunne2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean realizes he's in love with Cas. They make cookies. Cas shoots at him. There's a puppy.<br/>Any questions?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Distractions

Dean is looking for a distraction.

After years and years of overwork, of endless fast food joints and shitty motel rooms, suddenly the supernatural world has taken a chill pill, right in time for-

“What’re you doing?”

Dean jumps and glances up over the laptop to see Sam smirk into an inappropriately large mug of tea. He’s about to snap at him when Sam cringes and says, “Oh god, if that’s porn I’m going to puke.”

Dean’s debating the pros and cons of lying and telling Sammy it is when he notices an article that has real case potential. Sam moves to read over his shoulder, then shakes his head. “Nah. I checked this with Garth yesterday. Someone else is already on it.”

Dean huffs. “Well do they need back up?”

“No? It’s only two vamps. Dean, what’s…” His brother blinks down at him. “Is this about Cas?”

“What? No!” The squeak in his voice might’ve been a little indicative.

\--

Dean could admit, if only to himself, that it had been a problem for longer than a week. In fact, it had been a problem since shortly after he and Cas had met. Like ten minutes after.

But until a week ago, it was a theoretical thing. Like, maybe he was just so drawn to the guy because Cas had dragged him out of hell. Or because they’d been through more terrifying shit in the past few years than most people experience in their entire lives. Or Dean had just spent more time with him than any other human being on the planet that wasn’t Sammy or Dad.

Sometimes he could rationalize it as a friendship thing. They understood each other in a weird sort of way. They were best friends. Maybe his feelings were platonic. 

Yes. Friends.

But then it happened, and there was no going back.

He’d woken up ravenous. As he’d staggered down the hall to the kitchen he’d smelled bacon and grinned, thinking that maybe Sammy had gotten a head start on breakfast. He was not expecting to see Cas.

Cas at the stove, poking some bacon around the skillet with a fork in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. Cas in boxers. Cas swaying his hips ever so gently to the tune of whatever was playing on the radio, a sinuous little roll that had Dean hard in his sweats in an instant. Cas humming a rumbling melody in between sips of coffee.

For all the fantasizing Dean had done, he’d never imagined that Cas’s body would look like a marathon runner’s, though he knew Cas joined Sam for his jogs. His skin was tanned and his shoulders were corded with rolling lines of muscle. The stretch of his spine swept down to the swell of his ass and Dean wanted to follow it with his tongue. It was shocking to see the formerly cold, reserved, tight-ass of an angel dancing smoothly in his underwear while frying perfectly crisped bacon. 

It was too much, in fact, and Dean backed out of the kitchen with such speed and lack of coordination that he rammed right into a table and bruised the shit out of his hip.

From there, it was a losing battle. Exchanges between the two of them became so uncomfortable for Dean that he began avoiding Cas altogether, hence the desperate search for a job, preferably out of town.

Of course Dean thought he was being subtle, but a few days later Cas corners him in the garage.

“Have I done something wrong?”

Startled, the wrench falls from Dean’s hand and somehow manages to strike him in the shin on its way down.

“Shit! What?”

“Have I done something wrong?”

“Wha-why?” Dean stutters, collecting the wrench from the floor and ducking under the hood of his car in an effort to escape eye contact.

Cas notices.

“You’re avoiding me.”

Dean snorts. “No! No. No no no I’m not. No. Not at all.”

He furtively glances up to see Cas looking devastated, but it’s covered so quickly with such extreme incredulousness that Dean thinks he must’ve imagined it. 

“Woooow.” He draws out the word scathingly. “You’re many things, Dean Winchester. I didn’t think ‘coward’ was one of them.

All Dean has time for is an indignant noise. Before he can rally a response, Cas turns on his heel and disappears.

Dean slumps, whacking his head on the propped up hood.

“Ow.”

\--

Then the puppy happens, and that makes things a million times worse.

It’s Sammy’s fault, really. On his way back from the store he’d run across some kiddos with a boxful of puppies, which, of course he'd stopped to pet. And of course he ended up taking one home. 

Dean’s in the middle of teasing him about being a big old softie when Cas walks into the living room. Sam dumps the animal into Cas’s arms and the tiny thing wiggles its way up his shirt and starts licking his chin. Wonder and affection and excitement bloom and then he’s rubbing his face into the soft fur, eyes closed, a gentle smile twitching at his lips, and Sam’s grinning and it’s all so sweet and normal and Dean can’t take it. He disappears into his room and spends the remainder of the day watching Netflix and getting drunk.

It isn’t the end of it though, not by a long shot. Cas takes the dog with him on his runs in the morning and returns dripping with sweat and beaming and Dean watches as the tiny animal looks up at him in loving admiration, an expression that Dean is painfully familiar with despite not allowing himself to use it very often.

Tonight, Cas falls asleep on the couch watching Friends reruns. The puppy is curled up on his chest nuzzled under his chin, and is snoring gently while Dean stands in the doorway clenching and unclenching his fists.

“You know, you’re being kind of a dick,” Sam’s voice murmurs behind him, and Dean spins around abruptly. “Huh?”

“To Cas. You’re being a dick.”

“I’m…not,” Dean responds lamely. Sam rolls his eyes.

“Whatever, man. If you don’t want to admit your feelings for the guy, fine. But he’s your friend, and he's already struggling with this whole human thing, and now his best friend is ignoring him? That would suck for anybody.”

“I didn’t…I’m not…” he stutters, but Sam has already walked away, and Dean turns back around, feeling surprisingly shitty. Cas sleeps on undisturbed, puppy rising and falling with his breath, and he resolves to keep this bullshit to himself. This was no one’s problem but his own.

\-- 

Dean jolts upright, gasping, tangled in blankets that stick to his skin with sweat, and gets to grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“Fuck.”

His voice sounds rough, raw, and he belatedly hopes he hadn’t been screaming. Poor Sam has enough to worry about.

He finally untangles from the bedding and flops back down trying desperately to sleep, but every time he shuts his eyes visions of hell flicker across the backs of his eyelids. Frustration and exhaustion squeeze a few tears from beneath them, though he’d vehemently deny those later, and he’s reminded of the dreams he’d had after Mary’s death, the way they flickered through his mind like a slideshow, though they’d lessened in frequency over the years, yellowed at the edges and faded.

He thinks of her, how her look and scent are so distant to him now. He tries to recall being wrapped in her arms, warm and safe, but it’s too far away, decades since he’d experienced that feeling of rightness, of safety, of home.

With a growl, he tugs on a sweatshirt and pads into the kitchen. He isn’t hungry, but he knows he’ll just crawl out of his skin if he doesn’t get up and distract himself. Maybe he’ll bake something for Sam, or Cas, an apology for ignoring him.

And speaking of Cas, he’s slumped over the table with a notebook and a cup of something steaming next to him.

“Hello, Dean,” he grumbles, glancing up. There’s a smile there, but something is dull behind his eyes, and Dean is suddenly worried.

“Hey, Cas. What’re you doing up so late? Early?” He confirms the ridiculous hour on the clock above the stove and glances back down to see Cas gnawing at his lip and avoiding his eyes. “Cas?”

“Uh…bad dreams.” He admits it quietly, rubbing the back of his neck before shrugging up at Dean and trying out another smile, shaking his head. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” How very Winchester of him. 

Dean scoffs and Cas frowns, bristling. “Why are you up?” he bites out.

Front the bottom cupboard Dean grunts, “Same.” He straightens, mixing bowl in hand. “Nightmares.”

“Oh,” is all Cas says warily, and overcome by a frighteningly fervent desire to make him feel better, Dean offers, “You wanna help?”

Standing cautiously Cas mutters, “With?”

“Cookies.”

“Dean I have no idea how to cook.” Under his breath he mutters something that involves the words ‘useless’, and Dean huffs to cover the ache in his chest. 

“I’ll show you.”

If he’s honest with himself, which he rarely is, he misses Cas. Misses his weird factoids and strange humor. Misses the way he looks at Dean like he’s something more than a battered shell. Misses the way his whole body tingles when Cas accidentally places his palm over the shadow of his handprint scar. Cas is looking up at him with something disturbingly close to hope in his eyes, and Dean claps him on the shoulder. “Get out the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and put it on the counter.”

Surprisingly, Cas complies, and Dean sets to work pulling out the wet ingredients and measuring cups. Though he has the recipe memorized, he finds it in their battered old copy of Joy of Cooking and leaves it open on the counter. “You always want to level your dry ingredients. Measure out a cup of flour, but don’t put it in the bowl yet.” 

The flour puffs a cloud of white as Cas pulls the bag open and Dean stifles a laugh at his surprised look as he waits for the other man to scoop up a cupful. Lightly, he takes Cas’s wrist in one hand, holding it still, and a butter knife in the other before using the flat side to sweep the small mountain of powder off the cup and back into the bag. Cas’s pulse jumps under his fingers, and the delicate bones shift as he dumps the flour into the bowl. Dean’s probably having a heart attack, but manages to say, “Ok, ok, now two more.”

Right around the time he’s finished whisking together the wet ingredients, Cas rumbles “Done.”

Dean grins at him and Cas’s disarming smile in return takes his breath away. “Good. Good. So, uh, now we combine the dry and the wet ingredients. You keep stirring, I’ll pour. Little at a time,” he adds as Cas scrapes a clump of sugar from the edge of the bowl, tongue tucked into the corner of his mouth in an unfair display of cuteness. Dean find himself chewing on his lips, top and bottom alternating, to keep himself from brushing them along Cas’s jaw. 

By the time he gets to dropping spoonfuls of dough onto the cookie sheet, Dean has relaxed again, working with absentminded ease, and misses the way Cas’s eyes trace his mouth as he sucks the sugary dough from the spoon. He doesn’t miss the sound of Cas’s voice as he begins to sing along with the radio, though.

Cas had left Dean to finish the cookies, instead cleaning his way through the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. The sweet acoustic guitar intro of Helplessly Hoping drifts from the speakers, and to Dean’s absolute shock, Cas begins singing with incredible accuracy and grace, words rolling off his tongue guilelessly, though his voice is so low he has to drop the line an octave. 

“You know this song?” 

Cas nods. “I’ve been stealing a few of your records. Wanted to see what you were always ranting about. Much of it is very enjoyable.”

“Yeah? Like what?” Dean asks with a smile. If anyone else in the universe had been systematically stealing his records he’d have ended them, but Cas is always the exception. 

Cas shrugs, sorting away the cutlery. “Many of the names escape me, I apologize. l remember Bob Dylan. Allman Brothers. There’s a band that plays this song I was very fond of…”

“Can you hum a few bars?” Dean murmurs and Cas nods, a little bob of his head, and turns down the radio. “It is the summer of my smiles - flee from me Keepers of the Gloom. Speak to me only with your eyes. It is to you I give this tune. Ain't so hard to recognize - These things are clear to all from time to time.” 

Dean’s mouth falls open as Cas absently twirls a knife and sings a few more lines of Zeppelin’s Rain Song then says, “What?”

“What?”

“You’re staring.”

“I’m not...I just...sorry. You’re a good singer.” It’s a lame comment, but Cas shakes his head, continuing to toss the knife this way and that, catching it by the blade before setting it in the sink. He looks so sad suddenly. “No. I’m a good soldier. Was a good soldier. Anyway.” He tries that terrible attempt at a smile once more before saying, “I should - Goodnight Dean.” 

He gets as far as the doorway and Dean says, “Wait, Cas.” His voice is softer than it should be, but he can’t help it.

There are a million things he should say, not the least of which is, “I love you,” but should probably start with all the ways Cas is awesome, besides singing beautifully and killing like a badass. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything though, because now he can’t get the words out, and Cas look so fucking hopeful, and Sam was right, he’s a dick and Cas is lonely. Worse still, Cas was right. He’s a damn coward. 

“I just...thanks for your help tonight.” The first words come out a whisper before he can get himself together and he gestures over his shoulder at the oven.

Cas’s shoulders fall and his beautiful blue eyes ice over. “Of course.”

\--

Dean doesn’t sleep that night. He doesn’t even lie down. He paces his room, does push ups until he thinks he’s going to pass out. He almost prays. Almost.

He knows he can’t bear the pain in Cas’s eyes anymore. Even if the man wants nothing in terms of a relationship, they're still friends. Dean is supposed to be the one he can count on, and he’d fucked that up the past few weeks.

What if Cas never speaks to him again?

What if Cas says no?

What if Cas says yes?

\--

The sound of gruff cursing echoes almost as loudly as the gunshots, but Dean’s concern ends the moment he sees that Cas is landing every shot with ease, barefoot and bedheaded. Quite a look for the shooting range at two in the morning. It makes Dean want to wrap his arms around him, bury his nose in that messy, dark hair, breathe him in. 

“You’re becoming a regular Winchester,” Dean says. 

Cas whirls around. “What do you want Dean?”

Dean ignores him. “Shooting your problems away...nice accuracy by the way.”

Cas cocks the gun and aims it at him. Annoyed and gruff he repeats, “I said, What do you want?” 

“You gonna shoot me, Cas?” Dean jokes, hands up, and a shot rings out, slug buried in the wall an inch from Dean’s left shoulder where he leaned in the doorframe. That sobers him up real quickly. 

“Look, Cas, I need to talk to you.”

“Yes, well, I’m busy.”

“Ok.” He almost loses his nerve, but instead goes to the safe and pulls out his own handgun. They should both be wearing earplugs. To be fair, they should both be dead too, and that shit ain’t stuck yet either. 

He lands two bullseyes in a row before saying, “You were right.”

Cas empties a clip across a line of bottles, hitting every one. “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard those words leave your mouth before.”

“First time for everything.”

They shoot in silence for another minute before Cas says, “What was I right about?”

Dean rubs a hand down his face before squinting at one of the long range targets. “I’m a coward.” He misses.

There’s a hiss from Cas and then, “I shouldn’t have...that was unkind of me.”

“True though.”

“A coward about what?”

“You.”

Cas hasn’t fired a shot in almost a minute, but Dean reloads and immediately tries the long range target again, eyes forward.

“What about me?” he asks, voice rougher than usual.

“I was avoiding you.”

“I’m aware.”

He lands the shot this time, barely, and moves onto the next.

“And? What? I’m not an angel anymore Dean. I can't read your mind, and I’m of little threat to you.”

“Actually,” Dean says, finally setting the safety and laying the gun down. “You’re one of the only people in the world I’m scared of.”

Cas’s eyes widen, and in a poignantly human gesture, he shoves his hands in his pockets.

“Scared? But I … I asked you if I’d done anything wrong. What -”

“Nothing. You didn’t do anything wrong Cas, I - I’m shit at this,” he sighs, but forces himself to keep his eyes up. “You scare me because I can’t breathe when you’re gone, and I can’t think when you touch me. You scare me because my life ends when you die, and you keep fucking doing it anyway.”

Cas looks so shocked he might pass out. “Wha-”

“You scare me because you’re a fucking warrior of heaven, and for some reason you think I’m important. You scare me because you make me want things. I gave up wanting things a long time ago, you understand? It’s always a mistake. But with you...I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you, and I don’t - I don’t know how the fuck to deal with it, ok Cas?”

“Ok,” Cas whispers, then, nothing. He just stares for so long that Dean starts to have a legitimate panic attack. When he finally moves Dean flinches, but Cas just slips past him and locks both of their weapons back in the safe before taking Dean’s hand. With a soft smile he leads them through the bunker where he lets them into the warm yellow light of his room.

With all the surety that Dean lacks, Cas closes the space between them and takes Dean’s face in his hands. The stare weighs too much, and he sees it in Dean’s eyes, must have, because he leans forward and presses their lips together, chaste and sweet. “Cas,” Dean gasps. “What?”

“I have loved you, beautiful man, since the day I knew you existed.”

“You...can’t,” Dean stammers. “I’m...I’m a piece of shit, Cas. You’re...you.”

Cas laughs at that, rich and warm. “And you’re you. And I love you. Every flawed, human inch.”

It’s always been this way, he sees that now. Sometimes, in the horror of the nightmares about hell, Dean remembers when Cas came to save him, remembers the way they didn’t even have bodies, just spirits in the burning dark, and still they fit together like a lock and key, like halves of the same whole, like homesickness truly cured.

Cas doesn’t look the same now as he did in that barn years ago, but then again, neither does Dean. There are new scars. New wrinkles. Cas kisses the ones at the corners of Dean’s eyes.

“You can’t leave, ok?” Dean bites out, and he hadn’t realized it but the hand not cupping Cas’s face is fisted into Cas’s shirt so tight it’s stretching the fabric.

“I’m yours for as long as you’ll have me,” Cas whispers, and Dean nods. Forever sounds just about right and Cas smiles at him, eyes so fucking full of love it makes Dean worried he start crying, but before he does he leans in and kisses Cas again, kicking the door closed behind them.

He doesn’t want any distractions.


End file.
